The Rick Gallop Award Recognizing Research Exellence

In honour of Rick Gallop, who retired from the HSFO having held the position of President and CEO for 16 years, the Foundation is pleased to continue the Rick Gallop Award, recognizing research excellence and encouraging innovation in the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular science. This award is intended to honour Rick for the outstanding qualities of leadership, integrity, vision and strategic ability that he demonstrated during his tenure with the Foundation, that has resulted in spectacular growth on many fronts, including both fund raising and mission spending.

During his tenure, the Foundation spent over $325 million on its research mission. In addition to an increased, ongoing commitment to the traditional project and personnel funding programs, the Foundation ventured out into many exciting and innovative new initiatives like the Heart and Stroke Lewar Centre, the Endowed Chair program, Hot Spots, the Cardiac Atlas, the Health Behaviour Research Initiative and the Stroke Centre of Excellence. His commitment and leadership to the process has enabled the Foundation to establish itself as one of Canada’s leading health charities.

Each year, one of the five highest rated, HSFO-funded researchers in the National Grant-in-Aid Competition will be eligible to qualify for this $50,000 special award. There is no restriction on a grantee qualifying for consideration for another project, once the term of his/her current Rick Gallop award has expired. These five contestants must all accept HSFO funding in the current competition to qualify and will be asked to submit a brief outline on any innovative, “out of box”, exciting research undertaking that they would like to carry out, if they had an extra $50,000 to spend. This award will be totally independent of their grant-in-aid project for which they have already received funding. Their two-page submissions to this special competition will not be limited to any particular discipline of research and must focus on:

(a) a brief description of the project, highlighting the innovative aspect of the work

(b) a more detailed description of why this project has the potential to impact on heart and stroke outcomes

The five applications received will then be reviewed by the Research Committee in June/July and a decision made on the winner.

Each year, the recipient of the Rick Gallop Award will be invited to the Annual General Meeting of the HSFO where he/she will receive this award and will be invited to make a brief presentation describing his/her research and career goals. Rick will also be invited to the AGM to make the presentation.